Judgment Day
by CalliopeMused
Summary: It's Raven's eighteenth birthday. Everyone knows that Trigon is due for a visit. Raven knows she has to fight him alone. Can she? [Oneshot] [BBRae]


_No spoilers here, just the needed quick disclaimer. I don't own the Titans. If I did, BB-Rae would be a little more than innuendo in the show. That, and a few certain distractions would have been thoroughly dealt with, not just frozen in place as some irritating flaw for a potential relationship. Here it is, folks! A new one-shot, since people liked the last. Less fluffy, more action, have fun, read & review. Seriously- if you like, review. Then I'll know to write more one-shots in addition to current stories.

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She had been brave. She had fought for eleven days and nights, without flagging once. The world had been thrown into darkness several times, but she had not given up. Instead, she only fought harder. She screamed out her trademark phrase, three words to save the world, and parted the darkness until the world was covered in light. She was brilliant, she was wonderful, she was the heroine of the world, she was their only hope- no one else could fight the demon.

The fight ranged all over the world, not confined to Jump City. She fought him in Titans' Tower, she grappled with him in Washington D.C., she wrestled him away from London, she terrified Paris with a display of power as she knocked him to Budapest, she scandalized Lilongwe with her dress while scaring all of Malawi, she sparred with him in Calcutta, she chased him out of Canberra, fought across Antarctica, and never stopped fighting.

There was nothing anyone else could do. Robin tried to back her up in a fight, to lend his aid in direction. She only had ears for what would help her beat Trigon, only had eyes for her struggle, only had a tongue to scream defiance. She tore her cloak away when it became snarled, mystery be damned. She said words that made her flesh ripple, dissolving tattoos even as Trigon branded her with others.

The struggle for power was bright, red against black. She drew power from the emotions of those around her. Starfire helped with that to a small extent, broadcasting her emotions to give the rare power boost whenever she could find the always dueling pair. That was all the alien could do. Trigon had not even brought minions. This would be him against his daughter, one battle for the whole of the world.

Technology was nothing in a battle of power alone. Cyborg could only track the latest place of the battle, and try to run the most advanced of profiling programs to find a pattern, a strategy, a weakness. Trigon was too sporadic for computer systems, and such a demon would be ashamed to be beaten by strings of binary. There was nothing for him to do. Nothing.

Starfire couldn't keep up with the pair. They flew too high, too fast, and relied too much on mental fights. Instead, she took up the duty of following at a slight distance, watching and helping those people fleeing the carnage. As hard as Raven fought to protect the planet, there were casualties she couldn't prevent. Starfire flew them to hospitals, one small effort that she could make.

Raven threw everything she had into the fight, not holding back at all. She did her best to repair damage as Trigon made it, even while fighting him. Half the fight couldn't be seen, as she kept him out of her mind. She would not be controlled. She revolted again and again, refusing to give into the whispers surrounding her mind and promising peaceful oblivion. She had a world to save, from herself and the curse that chased her, nipping at her heels and never letting her slow down long enough to feel.

She would listen to no one. Beast Boy tried, again and again and until even he was tired of yelling to her, until his throat was too sore to yell out some new encouragement, until his mouth was dry enough that it absorbed water like a sponge until finally feeling hydrated again. She was gone from him, her entire mind completely focused on Trigon, and saving the world, and anything but emotions.

The fight was an epic. The physical clashes, hardly a fraction of the real fight for dominance, were enough that they could be easily termed spectacular. She always fixed as much as she could, and accidentally righted a tower in Pisa a little too well, but the alternative left no one to complain too loud.

All around the world, people knew. Even in the smallest of villages, someone knew of an old legend. The unlikely savior would face a close relative in the oldest and most heart-wrenching of sagas. All knew that the red was their doom, even without being told, from the way it wormed itself into causing destruction. The black waves of energy were always helping, quick as lightning and saving the world, one swell of power at a time.

She paid no attention to personal risk. She saved herself at the last minute, after each and every civilian was safe, if there was a single act she could do to save a life. She was close to death so many times the media couldn't even count for its perpetual coverage of the battle for earth. Too many stations, in an effort to stop widespread panic, played scenes of the battle as entertainment, not an event that bordered on apocalyptic.

The first day was her birthday. She ignored the party her friends had set up, smiling wryly at the cake. She knew what would happen. When her father appeared in the real world, in _her _world, she was ready. She had already told the others this was her fight, that she would need them to believe in her but not fight with her. Trigon was too powerful, and would have too many advantages if they were too close to the fight. If he killed one of them, she had said, she didn't know what she'd do.

Before he'd arrived, she surprised everyone. Each Titan received a hug from Raven, who looked dangerously close to tears. Starfire was careful to not smother the girl who could doom or save the world (the alien felt that would be a bit rude), Cyborg made sure that all systems prevented crying (telling himself that it was for Raven's sake, not his, even if he didn't believe it), Robin was at a complete loss for words (no one paid attention to Beast Boy's grumbled "Finally!"), and Beast Boy was more shocked than anyone when the darkest of the Titans hugged him the longest and whispered into his ear. Before he could process what she had said, she was already flying to meet Trigon, cape streaming behind her as she let out the first blast of black energy.

The second day was when the traveling truly began, and it blurred into the third, the fourth, and the fifth. She traveled the world like some kind of temporal vigilante tourist, but did no real sightseeing. She did fight against the backdrop of the world's most famous sights, even blasting away enough sand in the Sahara to uncover an ancient monument, but took no time to truly look at them. She was more than a little preoccupied.

By the sixth day of fighting, the cloak was gone. Her hair was wild, a mess of purple. Violet eyes were wide awake, not at all fatigued, and her pale hands were always dark with energy. She was always at work to suppress Rage, no matter what else she was doing. Fate could be changed. Prophecies could be wrong. She could be the savior of the world, not the Antichrist the superlative of religious movements termed her to be. She didn't hear the claims. She had no time to watch television, to read newspapers, to care what others were saying. All she had time for was the fight.

On the seventh day, he hit her mind directly with some bit of poison. She fell the equivalent of thirty stories from where they battled in midair. She had coaxed him to the skies, knowing there would be fewer casualties. She hadn't guessed that he could project his thoughts into her mind. Beast Boy caught her. He had been following her for days, eight to be exact, and when she was that high, he could keep tabs.

She had recovered near instantly, once she stopped falling. She rejected foreign thoughts, gave a quick nod to her rescuer, and catapulted herself into the sky with a burst of speed Cyborg wished the T-Car could emulate. Raven was not done fighting. To quote some admiral or other (Jones, was it? She couldn't be bothered to remember the fact properly), she had not yet begun to fight.

It had been a week, and he had only slept when Cyborg jabbed him with a tranquilizer. When he woke up, Starfire and Robin both had to restrain him while Cyborg explained (very quickly) about how he needed sleep, and showed him that nothing major had happened while he was asleep. He couldn't stay awake for a week straight without weakening his powers. Once it was explained that he would do more for Raven fully awake, he relented and didn't try to carry out several muttered threats.

The eighth day was dark. Raven was losing power. Half-humans were not accustomed to over a week straight of flying and dodging and skirmishing. Demons were. For the first time, she tapped into powers being half-demon gave her. Her skin looked only grayer, but she could fight on borrowed time, stealing awareness from the demon half, leeching the powers that she could have had and directing all the potential glory and ease of fighting into energy without a second thought.

Yes, she could have taken over the world, but she'd rather save it. The arrogant always fell, and she couldn't have the world and the person that mattered most to her. If she did take over the world, she would lose herself, and Beast Boy. She wouldn't want him to put up with a totalitarian. Instead, she fought for the harder task of saving the one place that had ever felt like home.

The next day dawned black, and it seemed that she would win. She was furious- he had just vaporized half of the Library of Congress, to spite her love of books. Making her madder wasn't a good idea, as he quickly learned. She was ruthless, taking risks and trumping his defenses with a series of split-second decisions. She didn't have to worry about teammates. Per her explicit request, they weren't in the open. She had enough problems keeping him from grabbing a passing civilian, and they were at least smart enough to run screaming bloody murder in the opposite direction.

The tenth wasn't nearly as optimistic. Even with her barrage of attacks that all cadets at the West Point Military Academy of Virginia studied in real-time, he hadn't been defeated. She hadn't found the weakness that had to exist. He knew hers, through the (in his case) slimy way a father knows a daughter. He continually attacked from her most vulnerable place, just behind her right shoulder, relying on an old injury to slow reaction time. He spoke of what would happen to her teammates, noting quite happily that mentioning a certain green one drew the most violent reaction.

The eleventh day dawned red. It was like the old saying- red sun in the morning, good sailors take warning. Raven was tired, breaking down, and running out of options. Her father was as fresh as hellfire. The religious prayed. The atheists found no belief to cling to, and some converted on the spot. Churches were crowded- the demon hadn't yet attacked one, through choice or the design of Raven's fighting, no one wanted to guess. They were running out of time, if Raven lost, and wanted to get their novenas in.

The Titans knew that this would be the last day. They could tell, just as they knew that Raven needed friends. Robin went first, if only because he knew her only as a teammate. She was trying to make a shield as her father created something nasty. Robin opted for the least subtle way of protection, knocking her out of the way and setting her on her feet. She moved him out of the way for the next blast, throwing him. She did make sure he landed gently, a fact he appreciated.

Starfire blasted Trigon. Finding the righteous fury to power starbolts was no problem. This wasn't her original planet, but it was her home, and Trigon was threatening her sister of a different planet, galaxy, race- it didn't matter. Starfire would protect complete strangers. For her friends, she had enough fury thrown into starbolts that she hurt Trigon, however little. It was enough to give Raven a few seconds when the world wasn't riding completely on her energy.

Cyborg would do anything necessary to save his little sister. Clichéd as it sounded, she was like family. They all were. Starfire was the little sister, Beast Boy was the youngest, Robin was the brooding brother who was closest to his naïve sister (or more than that), and Raven was the dark that made the light all the more brighter. A sonic boom wouldn't slow Trigon for long, but it made the demon stumble, giving Raven a final opening.

Beast Boy was waiting. No one could explain why, but everyone knew. He remembered what Raven had whispered to him. Cyborg hadn't been able to pry that out of the team member least likely to keep a secret. Beast Boy was waiting on Raven. He needed to know if she had just said that because she knew that she was about to face the fight of her life, or because she had been waiting to for a long time. He had.

By dawn of the eleventh morning, he couldn't wait any longer. The sun had risen, and was slowly climbing through a reddening sky. He attacked suddenly, with no warning, with no clue for his teammates what he planned to do, with no thought except to stop Trigon. He had been wheeling through the sky as a hawk, watching the fight with keen vision from a safe distance. Hawks had great eyesight. Hawks weren't fast enough. He would take the fastest form in the sky, and settle for one direct hit.

He dove, taking careful aim. He was pretty sure he had reached the maximum velocity, something very close to 212 miles per hour. That was no speed to laugh at; it was the fastest on earth, far quickly than a cheetah running, a swordfish swimming. There was only one disadvantage to a peregrine falcon. He was small.

He scored a direct hit in Trigon's eye. Raven didn't see him until it was too late. She would have made some last-moment plan, but even she couldn't react that fast to save the tiny bird from a valiant move. Trigon winced at the impact, roared that one of his eyes was gouged enough that no amount of demonic aid would save half his vision, and snatched the bird from the air.

"So, this is the mortal that my daughter so prizes," Trigon said conversationally, as if they had been chatting amiably for the last eleven days, instead of engaging in an apocalyptic fight for a world. "I'll kill him."

Raven didn't say a word. Three Titans watched, spellbound, as her forehead began to glow. Trigon smirked. There was one way to excite Rage. Once Raven let Rage into play, he would win. Raven closed her eyes, breathing deeply. There was no need to rush. He would rather have her alive and controlled by Rage. She would destroy her friends for nothing, and he would have no opposition.

"Azarath." She breathed in and out, from her lotus position in midair. All knew signs that she was bringing emotions under control. The glow dimmed for a second. Trigon glowered. Her friends crossed their fingers. Beast Boy, trapped as a falcon in Trigon's hand, was for once silent. He couldn't think of a single joke to lighten the moment, even if he could find the right vocal cords in a falcon.

"Metrion." The glow returned, stronger than before. Robin and Starfire held their breath. Cyborg froze, not starting a single bit of electric current. Some things were too important to look away from, too much to watch. Trigon's grip tightened around a nervous falcon. The gargantuan demon could crush a bird without too much effort. They could see two extra eyes on her forehead, gleaming through a layer of nearly transparent grey skin.

"Zinthos." Raven opened her eyes, all four of them. They were white, and she was calm. Not for long. "Go to hell, father!" she screamed, as a burst of white spread from outstretched hands, cloaking the world. The injured were healed, including hurts Trigon didn't inflict. Illnesses disappeared, even those sicknesses not caused by Trigon. Everyone around the world felt a burst of hope, pure and unabashed. Everything would be fine.

Beast Boy flew to the ground. Trigon had disappeared without time for a final threat. Starfire smiled, and couldn't bring her feet to the ground for joy that the world was whole. Robin smiled. Cyborg didn't even think of yelling "Booyah!" It was Raven's moment. But Raven wasn't smiling. She was on the ground, after falling in the midst of the flash of light.

Time seemed to be in slow motion, as it only is for fractions of a moment of a life. Beast Boy ran forward, running through air that felt thicker than frozen molasses. Starfire swore in some foreign language before clapping her hands over her mouth. Robin swore in plain English, saying words that can't be printed. Cyborg immediately made a page to all area hospitals. No one would deny treatment to the girl that had saved the world.

Beast Boy didn't leave her side, as expected. He was her one person in the ambulance. He was hovering outside the exam room where they ran scans. He was in her room before they could set her down on the bed, claiming the closest chair for his own. She was connected to enough monitors and IV lines and diagnostic tests and medical paraphernalia he couldn't identify to make him feel queasy, but one of her hands was completely safe to hold without jarring something. Just one hand, but it was enough, as gray and cold as it was.

The others arrived a little later, after delegating tasks. Robin handled the press. Cyborg handled the medical song and dance about care and the legalities. Arella was dead, and Raven's father was hardly the parent of the year. Power of attorney went to Beast Boy, but he wrote Garfield Logan on the slip. They all had to be adults, now, after too fast of a transition. Starfire sweet-talked the nurses into not giving Raven a hospital gown, explaining that when (she couldn't think in ifs) the Titan woke, she would _not _be pleased to think that anyone passing had a very clear view of her "rear quarters," as Starfire phrased it. Starfire supplied a set of leotards. The nursing supervisor (who was a devout Titans fan) agreed to the request. Usually, that would be against policy, but Raven's spare clothes were clean, and she was a world-renowned hero.

They gathered around the bed. No one expected Beast Boy to talk, but he did. "We- Raven and I- we were going out- I mean, are going out." No one called him on stuttering. No one was having a particularly good day. "We've been doing that for a few months now, but she didn't want anyone to know. She said it wasn't you guys, as much, as she didn't want the media to find out just yet. She didn't want Trigon to know, because then he'd know how to hurt her the most."

Starfire beamed. "Is this why you and friend Raven were often staying up late on the roof above my room trying out the kissing of the French?"

Beast Boy turned a very interesting shade, between a vibrant blush and a paling. Robin stared at Starfire. Cyborg barely managed to not laugh out loud at the looks on their faces.

"Star, what do you know about French kissing?" Robin asked incredulously.

"We had been going out for a month when that started," Beast Boy said at the same time, defending himself.

"I know that I wouldn't mind trying it out," she said, a little too innocently. "I don't know much about it. Maybe you could show me another Earthen custom, Robin."

Cyborg didn't stop a laugh this time at the starstruck look on Robin's face. "Go on, you two. Raven's out cold after what she did. Besides, she's been pushing Starfire into asking you for the last eight months, and my hints haven't worked for Robin. She'd want you two to get a hold of yourselves and go out."

"Sure," Robin said, sounding more than a little dazed. Starfire laughed, towing him from the dull beige hospital room and giving a last wave to her friends.

"B, do you need me here?" Cyborg asked. "I don't know if you wanted to have a private conversation with Raven."

"I'll be fine. Bumblebee's in the lobby, Cyborg. I can smell that perfume of hers anytime. Every flower ever created- it gives me a headache."

"Are you sure, B?"

"Yeah."

Beast Boy stayed the night. And the next day. And for the complete next week, until a nurse firmly (but politely) kicked him out of the hospital. He was not allowed back inside until he had slept (in a bed, not an uncomfortable plastic chair), eaten (something other than hospital food, which doesn't feature tofu), and relaxed (not stared obsessively at a sleeping person).

The sleep, whatever it was, was not a coma. Her brain activity was consistent with deep-stage REM sleep. She was dreaming. Sometimes, she would look afraid, and wouldn't relax until someone she knew (one of the Titans, Beast Boy was the best at calming her) stayed with her for a few minutes. Other times, she would smile, looking upon some dreamed landscape that made her happy.

Life went on, as it always does. Raven's Gotham hospital was close to Wayne Enterprises and Bludhaven, Robin's new prowls. Starfire found a job in Gotham, close enough to a neutral apartment just between Gotham and Bludhaven that was near both Robin's jobs. Vic was working on something new, for everyone on the team. He was in no hurry to go to college, but did start his bachelor's degree online in an area he was familiar with- criminal justice. Gar. . . was pretty much lost.

There was nothing wrong with her, medically speaking. She wasn't even in a real coma. She was just. . . asleep, and no one could wake her. After a month (and two days, four hours, and eight minutes- he'd lost track of seconds), Beast Boy was tired of waiting. He never had been the most patient of people, and this was just getting ridiculous. A perfectly healthy girl (who happens to be asleep) should not be lying in a bed, only breathing on her own. He was about to take drastic action.

He left the hospital with a grim face on, as if going into a battle. A private battle. Beast Boy was going where he had never gone before. (Well, hardly ever.) He would do what he had never dared think of doing. (That one time he had done it, he hadn't really meant to, and didn't know the implications of his actions, so that doesn't really count, right?) He was going to find out exactly why Raven wasn't waking up, and that meant one thing. Raven's room.

The Tower was empty, except for the sounds of Vic cursing (with an extensive, creative, and sadly tasteless vocabulary, or many interesting taunts towards wrenches, welders, propane torches, nuts, bolts, pure silver, sheet gold, pliers, jeweler's tongs, metal forges, gemstones, wiring, engraving tools, computerized tools, the probably parentage of solder, and metalworking in general could have been printed here) in the garage. Gar crept by (easy to do, when the form of a mouse is easily ready). Vic would try to talk him out of it. He knew that Raven wouldn't be pleased. But if this would help- Gar would do it.

He pushed open Raven's door, wincing instinctively. Nothing hit him. Not one of the boring, musty books lined neatly on shelves flew at him. The book he found beneath her cover, after seeing the bright corner sticking out, didn't bite him. It looked like something any teenager would read- at least, any teenage girl. He was relieved to see that it wasn't one of the more boring books, but one with talking to ghosts and an author a girl in the waiting room (a very long story, but people outside of brain scanning rooms often share an odd bond) recommended.

Underneath the clingy lavender formal dress he wouldn't at all mind seeing Raven in, he found what he was looking for. A mirror. To be specific, the mirror that would lead to Nevermore. He wrapped it in a folded sheet he found at the foot of her bed. He would bring it to Raven. Even if she was sleeping, maybe she could still use it to control her emotions. He passed by Cyborg without any real difficulty, just in time to see him hold a glowing ring of molten metal aloft. He left pretty quickly after that, to make the fast commute to Gotham. The drive took about twenty minutes, Cyborg's way. His way took four, if the winds didn't work with him.

Her room hadn't changed. It was still cold. It was still beige. The sheets still had company logos printed on them. The carpet was still threadbare. Raven was still asleep. He held out the mirror, reflective side towards her, with the air of a hero showing a won trophy to his lady love. Nothing happened. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. He turned the mirror around, looking at the surface.

He saw himself, at first. He was pale, as expected after a month of sequestering himself in her room and away from sunlight. His eyes were bloodshot. Around that part of his face, he looked like a really bad Christmas decoration, or maybe Robin's uniform. Robin already had a new model; blue, black, and silver were more suited for a night-time crime fighter. He had- the beginnings of stubble? That had to be it, miniscule dark green dots that matched his hair and felt bristly when he touched them. It was about time- he had almost believed that Raven was right, and that he would never mature.

Then, his reflection disappeared. In its place was a green-cloaked Raven, grinning triumphantly. He remembered her. Bravery, the most . . . gung-ho of her emotions. "Hey, Bravery."

"Howdy!" He had never thought he would live to see the day that word came out of Raven's mouth, whichever emotion he spoke to. "Glad to see you, Beast Boy. Herself is sleeping right now. I've been letting her, and Intellect agrees. That's Wisdom for internal knowledge and Knowledge for outside. She's next. I'm the first to greet you."

"I didn't think I could talk to you, without going through a mirror."

"Usually, you can't. But Raven's sleeping deep right now, so we're a little freer." Bravery disappeared from sight, elbowed out of her place by an orange-garbed emotion. Rude. It figured.

"She's out for the count. You can't really do much from out there, but no one ever has had a high opinion of your intelligence. I don't know why Raven likes you."

"We are dating-"

Rude interrupted, as expected. "No idea what she sees in you, grass stain."

Rude was done, or at least seemed to be when Intellect stepped into view. "She's resting. The energy needed to close the demons out of earth took more out of her than she could handle, so her body shut down- defense mechanism. She'll be fine, we think, but never will be quite as powerful for blowing things apart. She can build new gifts through concentration, and will heal people better than ever, with side effects." Intellect was polite enough to let Rage forward.

"It's your fault. She overloaded when she thought you were in danger. Never mind you would have died if Trigon took over the planet. You were in mortal peril, she freaked, she went to sleep." Rage glowered, but wasn't very convincing. Even she seemed to know that Raven needed the real incentive.

Timid was next. "I'm really sorry. Rage is always kind of . . . well, mad, and also rude, and I'm also sorry about the time we were on a date and I made fun of your tie and-"

Beast Boy cut her off. Her litany could go on for a long time. "It's fine, Timid. You're forgiven, for everything. Besides, I can't stay mad at you, even if you do happen to do something particularly irritating." Timid gave him a shy smile before darting out of view.

A new emotion was next, cloaked in purple and smiling shyly. "I'm Affection, but you kind of know that. I'm not that strong, yet, but I will be, someday soon. Maybe even today- I can't even tell." She stepped back, taking a place near Timid.

Happiness was last. The pink emotion was bouncing fast enough to make Beast Boy dizzy. "I knew you'd find us! We kind of have a plan. We're going to all yell 'Raven!' together, and see if it works. It's a good plan, right?"

"When does it happen?"

Happiness thought for a moment, then decided. "Now! Everybody ready? On three. One . . . Two . . ."

"RAVEN!" they all yelled together. Beast Boy's yell, the only one audible in the hospital, didn't draw any real attention. The Titans had tried something similar the week before. If he wanted a doctor, he was to yell for one. Yelling her name was something accepted as normal behavior in this ward.

Nothing had happened. After all this, after everything, after all that stress- nothing. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. He wasn't sad any longer. He was angry.

"What gives you the right to do this, Raven? We care about you. We don't want you to stay in some kind of wacked out hibernation forever. You were due to wake up four weeks ago at the very least. You can't leave me like this, Rae. I'm serious. I- I haven't told a single joke since you've gone under, since you started fighting Trigon. And you know what? No one has noticed, because they're all so busy worrying. Well, it seems fairly selfish to me. Because guess what- I love you, Raven, and you're not even listening." He was yelling now, loud enough that he drew a small crowd, a few taking notes on a classic nervous breakdown.

He ran out of anger. Instead, he collapsed into his chair. If life was perfect, she would have woken up. She would have at least heard him. Instead, she remained perfectly beautiful in repose. He cried more than he ever had in his life. If it was needed, he would move on, if only because he couldn't spend the rest of his life like this. It would break him into little bitty green pieces, and no one would ever put him back together again. He fell asleep, leaning over the bed.

Someone was prodding at his shoulder. "Goway," he murmured, still half-asleep. "There's noalarm, JumpCityfine, I gonnago backtosleep." The prodding didn't stop. Instead, it continued as he remembered where he was. Asleep in Raven's hospital room. "Don't need you to tell me to go away, nurse. I just took my break."

"Wake up, B," a familiar voice rasped, monotone more comforting than the sweetest of music. At a stretch in his state of partially-awake blissfulness, he would call it its own variety of beautiful music.

"R- Ra- Raven?"

She smiled, a half-smile so wry it could only be hers. "Glad you remember my name. I did kind of save your life a little bit."

"You saved the world, Rae."

"Enough hero-worship. I'll get enough slobbering media personalities later." She glanced at her arm. "Speaking of slobber- seriously, could you not do that when you sleep? My arm's kind of- gross. Is that _green?" _

He blinked. "You just woke up from a month-long sleep and are acting completely normal?"

"I was _sleeping. _That's what happens when you use powers past the magnitude of a demon's. I'm half-human. It'll take me a while to recover after shows like that." She made a few gestures, staring at a nearby cup. No black energy appeared. Cautiously, she lifted it, using only her mind. No colors, no chants- just telekinesis. That would take more than a little mental strength, but she could handle it. Telekinesis relied on concentration, mental aptitude, and the will to do something- she had to know all powers, after reading the Book of Azar so many times. "Well, that's kind of cool."

"You can still throw me, can't you?"

"Of course. Just give me a week, and I'll be throwing this bed around. Now, I'm tired of hospitals. If I'm a world-wide hero, I should be able to check out of here. While I was sleeping, I worked out what I'm going to do. I assume the Titans are done- we all need to move on. Too many adults in one spot- we're all grown up."

"I'm going into veterinary research," he announced, for the first time. He hadn't even considered such a thing himself.

"Sounds like your cup of tea- or soy milk, in your case." Raven grimaced. "I'm going into law. I plan on prosecuting rapists, and making them pay through the nose in prison time, all completely legal."

"Any moonlighting as a hero?"

"I don't blow things up any more. I can move them, but I'm not the crazy watch-me-fight-you-all-without-moving type anymore. I . . . know that, without knowing- I can't really explain. But I can heal, at least."

"Can you?" he asked.

She glanced at a bruise on his arm. A small pool of white light flowed across it, leaving no trace of anything but green. She slumped back again, but only for a minute. "I can, but recovering ought to be fun."

"I'll be here to help you out."

"Always?"

"Forever, Rae. You won't be rid of me easily."

She wasn't getting up anytime soon, so she pulled him onto the bed to lie next to her. "I don't plan on it, Garfield Logan." She thought for a moment. "I think I'll go with Gar. Garfield's a . . . bit of a mouthful."

"You don't say. But- we're adults now, right?"

"Right."

"And you can show emotion."

"Right."

"And we can go public as a couple."

"I think we're both hanging up the uniforms, unless you have a thing for purple spandex. We'll be Raven Roth, attorney at law, and Garfield Logan, veterinarian at large. In that case, right."

"And we're going to do just fine."

"Right. Are you going to kiss me, or what?"

"Right away, Rae." And he did.

* * *

Later that night, five adults met in a small café. The largest of them handed out class rings, one for each of them. His own had extra wiring, so no one near them could see robotic circuitry. All they saw was dark skin, with a hint of extra power beneath it. One green person merely commented that his liver didn't function properly. Liver disorders were known to give odd tinges to skin. The girl with orange skin bemoaned her choice of a self-tanner. The one with a very curious tan line blamed a sunlight masquerade. The only one to have no excuses had purple hair to match her eyes (obviously dye and colored contacts- what natural human had purple hair and eyes?), and an arm around the green guy.

Their hands met at the center of the table, forming the inside of a star. Together, they let out a battle cry, if only for old time's sake, five devout fans (or so it was assumed) celebrating a favorite group, and giving a last shout for a disbanded group. The Titans weren't gone. They had moved on. After all, no one's a teenager forever.

"Titans, GO!" And go they did- they had lives to live, and nothing would stop them. Nothing could. Once a Titan, always a Titan- they would all be just fine.

* * *

_For those who are wondering, yes, this is a prequel to _Rookie, _but I didn't want to spoil the ending by giving away a few details. Kori goes on to be a detective, Dick works two jobs, Raven gets a degree, Beast Boy gets a real job, Cyborg puts his degree to good use- but why let me tell you? Go on to the next story, and, to quote the newsboys of old times, read all about it._


End file.
